So did the Republican wave in the mid-term elections make reform more likely?

Interestingly, the normally left-leaning Washington Post editorial page seems to have the right attitude about the issue.

There is broad agreement that the Internal Revenue Code is an unfair, inefficient mess and that the solution is to lower marginal rates and apply them to a broader base of income. A simpler code, purged of its market-distorting loopholes, would foster economic equality and economic growth, both of which the United States desperately needs.

So does the election make reform more likely?

Does the rise of a newly elected Republican Senate change that calculus? We’d say that it might… To be sure, Democrats want tax reform to raise money; Republicans want cuts. Still, a good deal of work has already been done on basic principles of a tax overhaul by Democrats and Republicans in both houses of Congress. …With a strong push from Mr. Obama, early in the new Congress, they might just be willing to finish the job their predecessors started.

I suspect the Washington Post is being far too optimistic about bipartisan compromise.

Scott Hodge of the Tax Foundation, for instance, also offers a semi-optimistic assessment about the possibility of reform.

One of the most obvious questions from Tuesday’s election results is: what does this mean for tax reform? I think it certainly enhances the prospects of Congress and the president reaching a grand bargain on overhauling the tax code… Starting in January 2015, expect the new chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee begin holding a series of hearings on various aspects of reforming the tax system and the numerous “off-the-shelf” options available to them—such as the Flat Tax, X-Tax, FairTax, Cash Flow Tax, and the Camp draft. …Considering the energy to reform the tax code in both the House and Senate, it is quite possible that lawmakers could deliver a comprehensive tax reform bill to President Obama’s desk in 2015.

However, he also acknowledges that President Obama very likely would veto good tax reform. So even though our economy needs a less-destructive tax code, folks shouldn’t hold their breath expecting it to happen in the next two years.

I also addressed the topic as part of a recent forum at the Heritage Foundation, and I outlined several issues that have to be addressed if there is a serious effort to pursue tax reform. Here’s my part of the presentation.

But if you don’t want to watch me pontificate for ten-plus minutes, particularly since the video quality isn’t that great, here are my key points:

4. International bureaucracies hinder good policy. Good tax reform is based on taxing income only once and only taxing income earned inside national borders, yet the OECD wants to impose global rules based on extra-territorial double taxation.

5. Good tax reform is good health reform. The biggest genuine loophole in the tax code is for fringe benefits, and this is a big reason for the third-party-payer crisis in healthcare.

6. Fix the biased scorekeeping of the JCT. The Joint Committee on Taxation uses methodology that it farther to the left than Paul Krugman.

CRASH INEVITABLE? Money Morning has an article that Buffett is sitting on 55 Billion in cash waiting on something. Is it a market crash? It costs him $29 million each day he keeps it out of the market. Soros has a short position on the S&P 500. Jim Rickards the CIA Expert predicts a 70% chance of a crash. Cswinney 11-12-14

No economic nirvana by tax reform alone indeed. But tax attitudes are a proxy, a leading indicator of an electorate’s propensity towards either 5% compounding growth freedom to prosperity, or 1% stagnation coercive collectivism to compounding decline.